An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
